Measuring triple-helix synergy in the Russian innovation systems at regional, provincial, and national levels

We measure synergy for the Russian national, provincial, and regional innovation systems as reduction of uncertainty using mutual information among the 3 distributions of firm sizes, technological knowledge bases of firms, and geographical locations. Half a million units of data at firm level in 2011 were obtained from the Orbis™ database of Bureau Van Dijk. The firm level data were aggregated at the levels of 8 Federal Districts, the regional level of 83 Federal Subjects, and the single level of the Russian Federation. Not surprisingly, the knowledge base of the economy is concentrated in the Moscow region (22.8%) and Saint Petersburg (4.0%). Except in Moscow itself, high-tech manufacturing does not add synergy to any other unit at any of the various levels of geographical granularity; instead it disturbs regional coordination. Knowledge-intensive services (KIS; including laboratories) contribute to the synergy in all Federal Districts (except the North-Caucasian Federal District), but only in 30 of the 83 Federal Subjects. The synergy in KIS is concentrated in centers of administration. The knowledge-intensive services (which are often state affiliated) provide backbone to an emerging knowledge-based economy at the level of Federal Districts, but the economy is otherwise not knowledge based (except for the Moscow region).